The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2023
Sonos Era 300 (2023): an hourglass speaker that bounces Dolby Atmos off the ceiling
Sonos shapes a single speaker like an hourglass so six drivers fire forward, sideways and upward — one box that makes spatial audio real in any room.
Sonos
What it had to solve
Dolby Atmos music sounded convincing through headphones but no standalone speaker had delivered it out loud. Sonos said the design team started from a blank sheet of paper, asking what a speaker would look like if spatial audio, not stereo, set the job.
How it works
On March 7, 2023, Sonos announced Era 300, a $449 speaker built from the ground up for out-loud spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. The company described the design as starting with "a blank sheet of paper": the body is an elegantly cinched hourglass where every angle, proportion and perforation is tuned to direction and dispersion of sound.
Inside are six drivers aimed where the format needs them — forward, left, right, and upward, with the upward-firing tweeter loaded into a directional horn so it reflects audio off the ceiling. Two angled woofers carry the low end, waveguides widen the soundstage, and six class-D amplifiers drive the array. The result lets a single box place instruments around the listener instead of in front of them.
The form is not decorative: Sonos argues the unconventional shape is the only way six drivers can scatter sound convincingly, and The Verge's review agreed, calling Era 300 "the best spatial audio from any standalone speaker" and the first third-party speaker to play Apple Music's spatial catalog. The same drivers let two Era 300s act as Dolby Atmos surround rears beside the Arc or Beam soundbar.
Sonos also used the launch to bake repairability into the design: the speaker uses screws instead of adhesives for easy disassembly, post-consumer recycled plastic, and under two watts of idle power — evidence that a statement product could also carry the company's new responsible-design standards.
Why it lands
- Starting from a blank sheet let the driver layout — not an existing product silhouette — dictate the shape of the speaker.
- An upward-firing tweeter in a directional horn makes ceiling reflection part of the design, so height channels work without extra hardware.
- Six directional drivers solve out-loud spatial audio in one box, a job stereo speakers were never built for.
- Screws instead of glue made a flagship audio product serviceable, turning repairability into a selling point.
- Trueplay room tuning uses the same microphone array to adapt the spatial image to each room's acoustics.
What it did
The Verge judged it "the best spatial audio from any standalone speaker" and the first third-party speaker to play Apple Music's spatial catalog. Launched at $449 on March 28, 2023, it became Sonos's spatial flagship, later doubling as Atmos home-theater rears for 7.1.4 setups.
What you can take
When a new format demands a new acoustic job, let the physics write the shape: starting from the driver layout instead of an existing silhouette produced an icon rather than another cylinder.
Since then
Era 300 shipped globally on March 28, 2023 and became Sonos's spatial-audio flagship, with two units also serving as Atmos surround rears in Arc and Beam home-theater setups. Its hourglass design language carried through the Era family, and its form-follows-driver-layout approach was widely cited as the template for single-speaker spatial audio as streaming services expanded their Atmos catalogs.
Sources
- Sonos Unveils Era 300 and Era 100: The Next Generation of Smart Speakers Built for the Future of Immersive Listening
- Sonos Era 300 review: too ahead of its time
- Era 300: The Spatial Audio Speaker With Dolby Atmos
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